Should You Go for Meaning or the Money? A Debate

Society’s mind-molders are schools, colleges, media, and religion. Pretty much with one voice, they urge us to prioritize meaning over money. Yet many people go for the money, even many of our best and brightest. For example, Harvard’s 2014 Senior Survey finds that 1/3 are going into the two most lucrative fields reported: finance and consulting.

Here’s my internal debate on money versus meaning:

Marty Nemko #1. It’s easy for teachers and the media to preach meaning over money but in reality, if you’re a Mother Teresa, you’ll definitely be poor but be far from certain you’re making much difference. For decades, zillions of people have worked on behalf of the poor yet the achievement gap is wider than ever. In contrast, if you go for the bucks, the benefit, although smaller, is far more certain: you’ll more likely have a nice house in a nice neighborhood, nice car, good health care, etc. Those things matter.

Marty Nemko #2: You’re painting too extreme a picture. People who work for nonprofits don’t starve.

Marty Nemko #1: Nonprofits rely heavily on unpaid volunteers. And nonprofits get many applicants for each paying job, so they can pay poorly and expect you to work long hours for The Cause.

Marty Nemko #2: A for-profit job can be meaningful, for example, if you’re even peripherally involved in, for example, developing or distributing a better smartphone or medicine.

Marty Nemko #1: But too often, corporations are all about profit, which doesn’t provide as much societal benefit. Even with something as life-critical as medications, drug companies introduce new drugs that aren’t much more effective than generics but because they’re patentable and thus they can charge a fortune for them.

Marty Nemko #2: You can also find meaning, of course, in creative work: writers, artists, performers. But unless you are very talented, well-connected, or lucky, ideally all three, you risk poverty.

Marty Nemko #1: I know some creatives who'd rather live on ramen and canned tuna and with four roommates in a slum than get a straight job.

Marty Nemko #2: Most of them get tired of that after a year or two of banging on doors and usually never getting paid more than minimum wage for their art. How many actor wannabes trek to New York or Hollywood and then a few years later, crawl back home with their tail between their legs?

Marty Nemko #1: You’re assuming you can find meaning only in creativity or a product that makes the world clearly better. But even being an accounts-payable clerk who makes sure everyone gets paid on time should feel they’re doing meaningful work.

Marty Nemko #2: And because fewer people want those jobs than say working for an environmental nonprofit, they tend to pay better.

Marty Nemko #1: I think the biggest point that hasn’t been made so far is that studies find that beyond a bare middle-class income, people aren’t happier when they make more money.

Marty Nemko #2: That’s partly because an employer usually pays big bucks only if the job is hard, requires long hours, is stressful like litigation attorney, and/or is soulless, for example, bond trader.

Marty Nemko #1: Another reason that money beyond a middle income doesn’t make you happier is because after the momentary good feeling of, for example, buying a new Mercedes rather than old Toyota, doesn’t yield enough incremental pleasure to compensate for the worklife you just described—hard, long, and stressful.

Marty Nemko #2: Also, if you live in a fancy neighborhood and have other rich friends, it’s hard not to get sucked into Keep-up-with-the Joneses. If they say they’re vacationing in Tahiti, it’s hard to tell them you’re going to the Catskills.

Marty Nemko #1: I feel this is getting too one-sided. Remember that money buys lots of things that people do care about. They can decorate their houses in a way that makes them feel proud to have people come to their house. They can hire a gardener so the outside looks great without their having to plant, mow, weed, feed, and water. If they want plastic surgery to look 10 years younger, they can afford it.

Marty Nemko #2: Those are weak bases for choosing a career. Remember, you spend the best hours of your day, the best years of your life working.

Marty Nemko #1: I’m not feeling any clearer about whether to prioritize money or meaning. Maybe that’s because the golden mean is appropriate here: Strive to make just a middle class living doing something that feels meaningful to you.

I found meaning with a middle class income and am happy in retirement. My sister in law, an architect's wife who herself was a banker, is now involved an many very busy making charitable activities post retirement because she feels she is giving back. I think she doesn't know how to relax and enjoy life. Glenn

The argument you're addressing here is essentially quantity v quality, and it's an awkward comparison to make. Quantity (money) is a measurement, material and limited whereas quality (meaning) is a passion, immaterial and unlimited.
For arguments sake let us picture the yin/yang symbol whereby quantity contains a small amount of quality and quality contains a small amount of quantity - if you are rich in one, you are poor in the other - so opting for the middle ground would supposedly give you the best option - but is that really the case?

I see this as a rigid as opposed to dynamic balance - whereby we are narrowing the options that are open to us. For example if we looked at the yin/yang symbol in a way that was good/bad - which are opposing - then it's very apparent that the best option wouldn't be the middle position - we'd be wanting to maximise the good and minimise the bad. So if you said that the white half was 'good' and the black half was 'bad', essentially you'd be wanting the white half to be dynamic and expand to fill the entire circle - you don't eliminate the 'bad' but minimise it.
So what if we were to take this view with quantity and quality, looking at them seperately, how they oppose each other, say high or low. In living our lives do we want high or low quality/high or low quantity? And then equate this to our needs, both individually and collectively.

I'd suggest that many would aspire to high quality, such as good over bad, love over hate, courage over fear, passion/interest over boredom/disinterest etc etc which would lead to a more peaceful and co operative type of world, as referring to our yin/yang symbol the hate,fear,boredom,disinterest would be minimised if we were able to expand the 'goodness', the white half. To enhance these qualities requires much hard work on an individual level but could also enhance the collective, and these qualities are unlimited. This could be considered a humane need.

Now quantity is a different prospect - do we want high or low quantity (bearing in mind quantity is a measured and limited resource). This means that those who aspire to high quantity take a greater amount of the resource, meaning that there is less available to others, whether they aspire to high quantity or not. For an individual high quantity may be deemed to be 'good', but collectively this cannot be the case. Then following on from this - do we need high quantity? How much quantity constitutes a humane need?

So to the original question - quantity does not really equate to quality - but many of the systems that are currently in place do lead us to believe that they co-exist in a partnership. Where quantity dominates quality is minimised, so the unlimited is severely limited, however where quality dominates qualitative growth is unlimited and not dependent on quantitative limits - however the quantitative limits are still taken into consideration. Where quantity and quality maintain a 'happy medium' quality is still severely limited in its growth by a rigid balance.

Just to visualise rigid balance you could use the concept of a set of scales, an either/or scenario, right or left or up and down - whereas dynamic balance could constitute a tight rope walker, whereby both the rope and the walker are moving, right and left and up and down.

In thinking this through, you'll probably find it easier to draw and label the yin/yang symbol to grasp the context of what I have described.

How lovely that you were socialized by school, college, media, and religion to seek meaning over money. I, however, was socialized by those institutions, plus my family and friends, to seek money, money, money. Capitalism requires consumerism. Businesses, therefore, spend trillions of dollars on media campaigns to promote consumerism, which requires money. By that model, we exist to buy "things" so that our lives, and those whom we love and support, will be "better" and "happier." That's the promise of those millions and millions of commercials we see throughout our lives.

Moreover, our culture is obsessed with being #1 -- at EVERYTHING. Nothing less is acceptable. For example, it isn't enough to compete in the Olympics. A delegate MUST bring home the gold. Anything less is failure. To those who win the silver or bronze, they are patted on the back and told, "Oh, good try. You came so close. Maybe next time." Lying, cheating, and stealing are so prevalent because our culture breeds this type of winner-take-all competition (think: Lance Armstrong), which is why income inequality is so extreme.

Personally, despite the intense pressure to achieve everyone else's definition of success (power and wealth), I chose government service (public defender), because I didn't want my practice of law to be focused on generating income. I didn't want to sit across from a client and consider whether to spend the time writing a motion or researching the law or preparing for court (which is the heart of legal practice) when I could make more money spending that time with other clients or "networking" with other attorneys. Now, 25 years later, I have very few material things, no retirement plan, poor physical and emotional health because of the intense stress (and depravity I witnessed). By every outward societal measure of success, I am a failure. While I know in my heart that I helped hundreds, if not thousands, of people, and sleep well because of it, the world does not care. It does not appreciate the sacrifices I made (often living hand to mouth on abysmal government salaries) to provide a public service that benefits us all. It measures me by my status in the food chain and by my material wealth. I try every day to hold firm in my lifelong convictions that I made the right choices in life, but the messages I get everyday from my framily, and the world at large, is that I'm a fool. Nice guys (and gals) finish last. At 50, I'm starting to experience the discomfort of my choices and wish that I had been less idealistic and altruistic and more self-protective. No time like the present, I suppose.

You don't have to watch those commercials, nor that materialistic medium. You can turn off and disconnect your TV. My wife and I did that three years ago, and we both feel much better for having done so. Set your own values for what is important to you. Life's too precious to do otherwise. Glenn

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